lundebes, Author at College of Business

March 1, 2015April 29, 2015

Willener: Beavers among the best

The College of Business prepares people to measure up against the best, says Curt Willener, this year’s Distinguished Early Career Business Professional.

The Hillsboro resident should know. Three years after his OSU graduation, he was accepted into the MBA program at Harvard Business School.

“OSU was on my list, but since I’d gone there as an undergraduate, I wanted a new experience,” who at the time was working at a mill in Albany. “I had just gotten done with a super dusty, 14-hour shift when I talked to (Dean) Ilene (Kleinsorge) about going to graduate school. I think I got her office dirty. But she was so open to talking with me and supporting me, and Ilene wrote a recommendation letter that helped me get into Harvard.

“You’re always a little nervous with something like that, but Ilene said don’t worry, we prepared you, and she was absolutely right,” Willener said. “The top students at Oregon State can compete anywhere in the world against anyone.”

For Willener, now operations manager and Danaher Business System leader at Tektronix/Danaher, the route to OSU began on Sauvie Island, where from age 12 to 18 he worked at a local farm and kennel. After graduating from Scappoose High School, he followed in the footsteps of his OSU alum father, Henry, and headed to Corvallis.

Willener graduated in management and finance from OSU in 2004 and earned a place in a Weyerhaeuser program designed to develop new leaders. Within a few months he was the night-shift supervisor, winning over the older, more experienced workers by “treating them with respect and giving them a fair shake” and “approaching situations with humility and common sense.”

“Listening is a really big part of it,” he said. “People respect you for it.”

Willener will be honored May 11 in Portland at the college’s annual Celebration of Excellence, along with the rest of the 2015 award winners as well as the retiring Kleinsorge. For more on the event and the honorees, follow the College of Business blog as the countdown to the celebration continues over the next couple of weeks.

The evening begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner and the awards presentation. For more information or to register, contact Elsa Frey at elsa.frey@oregonstate.edu or call 541-737-6648, or register online at http://business.oregonstate.edu/awards.

February 26, 2015May 15, 2015

Alumni return for Career Symposium

Cameron Stanislowski picks up tips from OSU alum Katie Barger, who works for Nike.

Representatives from more than 50 companies were at the CH2M HILL Alumni Center on Wednesday for the 29th annual Career Symposium for College of Business students majoring in interior design, graphic design, apparel design and merchandising management.

“It’s great to be involved with people in the industry, and it’s cool they brought it to us,” Hannah Bonilla said during a “life after graduation” networking session featuring Oregon State apparel design and merchandising management alumni who work for companies such as Aquent, Firebrand Sports, Gap and Macy’s.

“You hear what they do and think ‘Oh, I might want to do that too,’” said Makenzie Donnerberg, like Bonilla, a junior majoring in merchandising management.

Fred Meyer, Kohl’s, Nike and SmithCFI were the gold-level sponsors for the four-hour symposium, the theme of which was, “Yesterday’s Dream, Today’s Mission, Tomorrow’s Reality: Shaping the Future of Business & Design.”

Columbia Sportswear and Dream Careers were silver-level sponsors, and traditional-level sponsors included Accademia Italiana, Adidas, American Home & Stone, the American Society of Interior Designers, Buckle, Fine, Hanna Andersson, JanSport, Linn County, Lucy, The North Face, Pacific Furnishings and Pendleton Woolen Mills.

“It’s really fun to walk around and talk to people and see what they’re doing and figure out what I’ll actually do after graduation,” said John Conner, a senior in apparel design. “I’m interested in sportswear but am keeping everything open.”

Senior Cameron Stanislowski, who’s studying merchandising management, said his dream job would be to work in footwear design or footwear product development, ideally in the areas of cleated, training or basketball shoes.

“It’s so useful to have your past classmates come back and talk to you,” he said. “You can network and really find the heart of what you’re into as you prepare to make that transition from graduation into the possible industries you might be in.”

More than 390 students attended.

Claire Rose, an OSU grad working for Macy's, talks to students at the symposium. — Claire Rose, an OSU grad working for Macy’s, talks to students at the symposium.

February 25, 2015May 15, 2015

Executives offer career tips

Elise McClure, left, and Eileen Frack, center, listen as Angelina Lusetti addresses the audience.

A trio of executives, all College of Business graduates, spent an hour Monday afternoon fielding questions and offering career tips to about 40 students during a panel discussion in the Austin Hall Events Room.

The panel included Angelina Lusetti, a human resources business partner with Target; tax attorney and retired Starbucks vice president Elise McClure, and Eileen Frack, director of executive management development for Daimler Trucks North America.

The session started with suggestions for applying and interviewing:

Find a way to make your interview answers stand out from everyone else’s.
Be aware that prospective employers are looking at the entire resume, not just grade-point average.
Research the organization you’re interviewing with before you go in for the interview.
Say you really want the job and why you’d be great at it.
Hone your face-to-face communication skills and writing skills, both of which can suffer from too heavy a day-to-day reliance on text messaging.
Take pains to come across as a good, friendly person, since many organizations have a strict no-jerks hiring policy.

The talk then shifted to how to establish yourself in your career and move it forward, and the array of tips centered around one key theme: “Manage your own career and compensation,” said McClure, meaning it’s up to you to try to make things happen regarding advancement and raises, because if you don’t, likely no one will.

Other thoughts from McClure:

“Don’t be afraid to move.”
“Understand the culture of your company.”
“Be willing and able to ask questions.”
“Be open to what comes,” as in, don’t become hidebound by the career plan you’ve mapped out.

Frack stressed the importance of learning how to say no and trying hard not to work for bosses you don’t like or respect. She also urged students to “find what feeds your soul” and to establish a healthy work/life balance, including serving on boards of volunteer groups, both for community benefit and to develop leadership skills.

Lusetti emphasized balance too, noting that she puts personal activities on her calendar as a means of holding herself accountable to actually doing them. She also told students to be willing to step outside of their comfort zones as a path toward learning and growth.

The Career Success Center organized Monday’s event. For more career advice, drop by the center, Austin Hall 102, and follow it on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/OSUBIZJOBS.

About 40 students attended the panel discussion.

February 20, 2015May 15, 2015

OSIG hosts UO counterpart

Presenter Katie Merrill talks with schoolmates and students from the UO at the breakfast portion of the meeting.

You wouldn’t know it from her stylish print dress, but fashion is not a passion for Katie Merrill.

Nevertheless, there the OSU senior was Friday morning, giving an analysis of high-end design company Michael Kors to about four dozen of her peers in an Austin Hall classroom during a joint meeting of the Oregon State Investment Group and the group’s counterparts from the University of Oregon.

“It was kind of nerve-wracking with everyone here,” Merrill said after her 30-minute presentation, during which she recommended both schools’ clubs invest in Michael Kors. “But it’s always fun to present to the combined group. The questions are different.”

Merrill, double-majoring in finance and industrial engineering, said she spent a month preparing for Friday, her fourth such presentation overall.

Her talk, delivered to a dressed-for-success audience, followed a presentation by Oregon’s Matthew Eden and Michael Lyford, who had analyzed Infoblox, a company that deals in IT management tools.

The student investors had no shortage of follow-up questions for the presenters, many of them pointed.

Afterward one of the questioners, the UO’s Graham Simon, a math major, explained: “Someone has to dig into the numbers and find the pressure points.”

The presentations by Lyford, Eden and Merrill came after other club members had given overviews of each group’s three portfolios: Tall Firs, Svigals and DADCO for the University of Oregon, and Large-Cap, DADCO and Russell 2000 Synthetic for Oregon State; DADCO, which stands for the D.A. Davidson Student Investment Competition, features 20 schools throughout the West, each of which is given $50,000 each September to manage. OSIG is the defending champion, having last year turned that $50K into $69,014.35.

The Large-Cap portfolio, which originated with $1 million in funds from the OSU Foundation in October 2008, is now worth $1,944,561.86.

The Oregon State Investment Group meets every Friday from 8 to 10 a.m.

February 19, 2015May 15, 2015

Accelerator cohort sharpens the focus

Refining the market, retooling the message, reshaping the strategy, reviewing the overall approach – those are the objectives every other Tuesday afternoon when the OSU Advantage Accelerator’s clients give presentations to each other and a group of volunteer mentors from the business community.

The winter 2015 cohort, its third, began its five-month course at the Accelerator the first week of January. Under the co-direction of John Turner and Mark Lieberman and with the assistance of student interns, the Accelerator works with entrepreneurs from Oregon State and the mid-Willamette Valley at large to commercialize their innovations; it focuses on high-growth, traded-sector startups and early-stage businesses.

On Feb. 17, the current cohort presented for the third time – on the way to a total of 10 – as the entrepreneurs tune up their plans and their pitches.

“This group is just getting rolling,” Turner said. “To really appreciate the progress they’ll make, you need to see the evolution over time. Inevitably, you want to compare this cohort to the last, but this one is doing well. They’re making good progress, as good or better progress as the last cohort.”

Six companies comprise the latest group: Beauty Leaf, Inc.; Bridgeway Wellness; Danio Discovery; E-MSion, Northwest Research Laboratories, Inc., and Pure Living.

Beauty Leaf deals with plant-based skin care products, and Bridgeway’s goal is to operate a clinic for tissue regenerative therapies. Danio’s technology involves using zebrafish for pharmaceutical toxicology assessments, E-MSion has come up with an add-on for mass spectrometers, and Northwest Research Laboratories has developed a cleaning-audit product for facilities such as hotels and hospitals. Pure Living’s idea is a website that collects data from different resources regarding the potentially toxic effects of certain chemical compounds on expectant mothers.

“Demo Day is the end point of the process we’re going through now,” Turner said, referring to a June 25 event at which the entrepreneurs will present to an audience at Corvallis’ Majestic Theatre. “We’ll talk about their pitches, work on their pitches, work with them individually, go through the pitch, provide feedback a little at a time, go through the whole process.”

The OSU Advantage Accelerator is part of the South Willamette Valley Regional Accelerator Network, known as RAIN, created by the Legislature in 2013. RAIN has locations in Corvallis and Eugene, and those cities, along with Albany and Springfield, are partners in the network as well.

For more information, visit http://advantage.oregonstate.edu/advantage-accelerator.

February 13, 2015September 30, 2015

‘Disruption’ rocks campus via TEDx

Emily Calandrelli talked about the importance of STEM education.

Organizers and speakers take the stage one final time at the event's close. — Organizers and speakers take the stage one final time at the event’s close.

Can anyone really afford to be STEM-illiterate, or complacent in the fight against pseudo-science?

Are you passionate, dedicated and ready to connect with like-minded collaborators and leverage the power of big institutions?

When bionic arms and legs are better than natural ones, how will we feel about it?

Those were a few of the questions posed to a capacity crowd of 1,200 at the LaSells-Stewart Center on Feb. 12 during TEDxOregonStateU, the theme of which was “Disruption: Revolutionary and influential ideas worth spreading.”

College of Business student Aaron LaVigne, along with College of Science student Dustin Hernandes and recent OSU graduate Vinay Bikkina, organized the event. It featured five speakers, plus two TED videos, and challenged the audience to think in ways they possibly hadn’t before, such as:

Is while you’re still single the best time to work on your marriage?

Are mobile phones a game-changer for the financial services industry?

Do you know when it’s time to “drop the mic” and walk away?

“The topics were interesting and thought provoking,” said Alex Howell, a College of Business junior. “And I thought the taped TED talks were great too. That Malcolm Gladwell talk, I’ve probably seen it 10 times. He’s my favorite author.”

Gladwell spoke about how market researcher Howard Moskowitz changed the American food industry’s approach to meeting consumer needs, from a universal strategy to a taste-specific one, via a detailed study of spaghetti sauce. The other video featured psychologist Meg Jay, who specializes in helping people not to look at their 20s as a throwaway decade.

The live speakers were aerospace engineer and TV producer Emily Calandrelli, who talked about the importance of STEM literacy; Grameen Foundation Technology Center director David Edelstein, who predicted mobile phones will change the way people bank; fashion designer Michelle Lesniak, who described the emotive power of clothes; OSU Honors College student Matthew Kaiser, who spoke on bioengineering while asking if humanity is “ready for an upgrade”; and HRH Media Group president Hanson Hosein, who talked about the value of passion, dedication, collaboration and knowing when it’s time to “drop the mic” and walk toward your next challenge.

“There was something that related to everybody,” said Jessica Keune, who’s pursuing a Ph.D. in nutrition and bone health. “It’s great to get students and the general public together for these types of events.”

The “Disruption” discussion continues on Twitter, #mydisruption, and Facebook, www.facebook.com/TEDxOregonStateU.

Organizers Dustin Fernandes, left, and Aaron LaVigne flank speaker Matthew Kaiser.

February 11, 2015

Finance student doubles as dog trainer

Wrangler and Kenzie enjoy a break at Trader Bing's Cafe at Austin Hall. — Wrangler and Kenzie enjoy a break at Trader Bing’s Cafe at Austin Hall.

Animals have always been a big part of Kenzie Young’s life, so it’s only natural they’re a key component of her education at Oregon State – including one particular creature who’s become a fixture at Austin Hall.

That would be Wrangler, the 9-year-old dog Young is training to be a service animal.

“He goes everywhere with me,” said Young, who’s majoring in finance with a minor in animal science.

Young has had Wrangler, a border collie/McNab shepherd cross, since adopting him at six weeks old when her family lived in a rural setting in Yelm, Wash.

“He played Frisbee, herded horses,” she said. “He’s pretty much done everything.”

And now he’s learning to be a service dog for people battling depression and anxiety, specifically for a relative of Young’s who suffers from anxiety.

“Depression and anxiety kind of run in my family,” she said.

Wrangler’s training began a year and a half ago in classes attended by him and Young’s mother. At this stage, Young brings him with her as she goes about her daily life and rewards him with a treat every time he responds positively toward someone who looks sad.

Wrangler will conclude his training at the end of the school year, at which point he’ll be evaluated for two weeks by a representative of the United States Service Dog Registry. If he passes his evaluation, he’ll be officially certified, which gives him a formal stamp of legitimacy should anyone challenge his presence anywhere – for example, on a commercial airliner.

Working with Wrangler is part of a jam-packed schedule that Young deals with via “good time management skills” and a “lack of sleep.”

Supplementing her coursework, she’s interning for Linn County, doing auditing in the county’s general services department. She also works weekends as a cashier at Kmart, barrel races for the OSU rodeo team and serves as a brand ambassador for Bootights.

In addition, she’s partnering with College of Business online fashion magazine DAMchic to organize a Mom’s Weekend event that honors women role models on campus.

Career-wise, Young is “leaning toward being a financial analyst.”

“But I went to a Travel Friday to different investment banking firms,” she said. “And that was exciting, too.”

February 9, 2015February 10, 2015

Check out TEDxOregonStateU

College of Business student Aaron LaVigne, left, has teamed up with College of Science student Dustin Fernandes, right, and recent Oregon State graduate Vinay Bikkina to organize the TEDx event.

College of Business student Aaron LaVigne has teamed up with College of Science student Dustin Fernandes and recent Oregon State graduate Vinay Bikkina to put together a TEDx event that has sold out the LaSells-Stewart Center’s 1,200-seat Austin Auditorium.

TEDxOregonStateU, a series of short talks on the theme of disruption, starts at 6 p.m. Thursday. Independently organized TEDx events feature talks, demonstrations or performances that foster learning, inspiration and wonder. Ticket sales have been brisk to hear the lineup of speakers:

Emily Calandrelli, a co-producer and host of Fox’s new show, “Xploration Outer Space,” who works to scientific literacy and women in science, technology, engineering and math.
David Edelstein, senior vice president of global programs at Grameen Foundation and director of the Grameen Foundation Technology Center.
Hanson Hosein, the director of the communication leadership graduate program at the University of Washington and president of HRH Media Group.
Michelle Lesniak, the season 11 winner of “Project Runway.”
Matthew Kaiser, an undergraduate student at OSU, who is working toward an honors degree in microbiology with minors in Spanish, chemistry and toxicology.

Tickets are $20, or $15 for students. Tickets and additional information are available at www.oregonstate.edu/TEDxOregonStateU.

February 3, 2015February 23, 2015

Employers, BIS students get together

Oberto Brands booth — BIS student Sukhpreet Singh, left, speaks with Oberto Brands representative Felicity Pau.

Business information systems students and representatives from 23 private- and public-sector organizations came together at the CH2M HILL Alumni Center the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 3, for their annual Meet the Firms event.

Meet the Firms is a networking opportunity for Oregon State’s roughly 150 BIS students and potential employers from around the state.

The College of Business’ Career Success Center hosts the event.

Participating organizations were Cambia Health Solutions, Con-way Enterprise Services, Daimler, Deloitte & Touche, Huron Consulting Group, IBM, Jive Software, KPMG, Mu Sigma Inc., Nike, Northwest Evaluation Association, Oberto, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rubicon International, Providence Health Systems, Samaritan Health Services, The Standard, TEC Equipment, TKW and Zones, as well as the city of Portland, the Oregon Legislature and OSU.

Ojes Athyantha and Thomas Keough were two of the approximately 100 students in attendance. Keough was interested in Daimler, where a cousin had interned, whereas Athyantha gravitated early on toward Mu Sigma.

“They kind of do their own kind of consulting, do their own thing with big data and business analytics,” Athyantha said. “It looks interesting. I’m going to take a look.”

Meet the Firms provides students a chance to sell themselves to potential employers, including telling them about projects undertaken through OSU’s Students of Information Management Club. SIM Club aims to provide real-world problem-solving opportunities designed to make them profession-ready upon graduation. SIM Club meets at 6 p.m. Tuesdays in Austin Hall 270.

For more information about BIS, contact program coordinator Rene Reitsma at Rene.Reitsma@bus.oregonstate.edu. Byron Marshall, byron.marshall@bus.oregonstate.edu, is the faculty advisor for SIM Club.

For more on the Career Success Center, drop by the CSC office at Austin Hall 102, or visit http://business.oregonstate.edu/careers.

BIS crowd. — About 100 BIS students turned out to meet with representatives from 23 organizations.

February 2, 2015February 2, 2015

Raise a cup to OSU Food Drive

The College of Business is making it easy and fun, for faculty, staff, students and visitors to Austin Hall to play a key role in the 2015 OSU Food Drive.

The college is helping to kick off the drive with free coffee and tea from 8 a.m. to noon in the Austin Hall Marketplace. While enjoying your refreshments, you can make a donation of money or non-perishable food, buy a 50-50 raffle ticket or sign up to make monthly payroll contributions. Raffle tickets are $5 each or three for $10, with half of all ticket revenue going to the raffle winner and the other half to Linn-Benton Food Share.

Each February, the university’s annual food drive accounts for about one-quarter of Food Share’s buying power for an entire year; last year, Oregon State’s efforts equated to more than a half-million pounds of food.

So let’s make sure the College of Business does its part. Have some coffee or tea, and then help others in our community make sure they have the nutrition they need. If you are unable to attend the event, you can still give via cash, check or food item (there will be donation boxes at the event, Trader Bing’s, 302 Austin Hall, 384 Austin Hall and 228 Milam Hall. Payroll deduction forms can be obtained in Austin 384.

Make a point to start your day, month and year off with a beverage on us, and with a spirit of generosity that benefits our entire community.

For more information about the Tuesday event at Austin Hall or the food drive itself, contact Krista Klinkhammer at krista.klinkhammer@oregonstate.edu.